Kyle Larson denies Chris Buescher the NASCAR Cup pole at Kansas

Last spring at Kansas, it was Kyle Larson versus Chris Buescher for the race win in the closest photo finish the Cup Series has ever seen. This weekend, it was the same two drivers again in the fight for pole, but it wasn’t quite as close. This is Larson’s 22nd career pole, but his first of the 2025 season and his first at Kansas as well.

“Pretty ironic to have us both on the front row here after our close finish a year ago,” smiled Larson. “It’s cool to finally get a pole here at Kansas too. I feel like I’ve been just short a number of times and I hope they still give out that pedal car (for pole) because that’s what I’ve always wanted. Especially with having some kids so I hope that’s still a thing. Just proud of our team … thanks to Chevy, the engine shop, everybody. So yeah, off to a good start.”

On his expectations for tomorrow, Larson said: ‘It seems like the pace is a lot faster throughout the run. Just in qualifying, we’re three-quarters of a second faster than we were here in the fall with similar track conditions and temps. So yeah, the tires and the cars and the setups have all gotten better. I think it’s going to be a fast-paced race, but I know our car is always good on mile-and-a-halfs. Just try to do a good job and execute on pit road and give ourselves late in the race like we did last year.”

Buescher had pole, until the very last driver rolled off pit road — with Larson then eclipsing him by 0.056s, lapping the 1.5-miler in 29.391 seconds. Buescher has just five front row starts in his entire Cup career, and none since Texas in September, 2023.

“We could have manufactured a better story if we tried, could we? That was a really awesome lap for this Ford Mustang,” said Buescher. “I’m proud of this group. Practice was really solid and Texas last week was awesome so we came into here with a lot of high hopes and it’s really showing up already. Missed it by that much, but we’re in a good spot and that will put us in clean air for the start of this race at a track we’ve been really good at.”

Behind the front row, Christopher Bell led the Toyotas in third, Tyler Reddick was fourth, and Joey Logano was fifth. Ty Gibbs, William Byron, Daniel Suarez, Chase Elliott, and Ryan Blaney filled out the remainder of the top ten.

Two drivers found the wall during the qualifying session, which proved costly. Josh Berry was the first to slide up into the wall, leaving him as the slowest of the 38 qualifiers. Kyle Busch got into fairly hard as well in Turns 3 and 4, qualifying 35th.

Some other notables starting deeper in the field: Denny Hamlin in 14th, Bubba Wallace 15th, Chase Briscoe 19th, Alex Bowman 21st, Ross Chastain 26th, and Brad Keselowski 36th.

Five drivers suffered tire failures due to low air pressures in practice, but this was not an issue that continued into qualifying.